Help Regarding Pastry Cream!

I am making a cake for someone who requested strawberry and custard filling with yellow cake. I made her a sample cake with 2 layers of filling made from frozen strawberries and and 1 layer of traditional scratch pastry cream. I tried the combo and thought it was excellent, but she sent me an email saying that no one really liked the strawberry cheese-cake.

First, I am confused because there was absolutely no cheese in that cake. I asked her what she didn't like about it and she wouldn't say. Only to ask if I used real strawberries or gelled strawberry filling, which I didn't. I usually make everything from scratch.

At this point I am not quite sure what she is looking for. I can't use fresh strawberries because the cake is heavily decorated and I will have to work on it for at least two days. Also, I pretty sure at this point we both have different definitions of custard.

So help! I have never had any complaints before about my cakes so this threw me for a loop. Any suggestions regarding what this women might be looking for or any goto recipes that might work would be appreciated.